A Thought

Satire, by me :

No, no, no. If you want to be cool and invincible, then you've got to DESPISE colourfulness ! You must say "I get SICK from colours !" You must do as if you would vomit if exposed to an colourful video game ! And the titles of the games you openly admit to play must include words like "war", "dark", "demon", "honour","soul", "lost", "crime", "metal" and so on ...
 
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Most jRPGs are full of color though. Graphically violent, yes, but also colorful. HuniePop is colorful AND it's not violent. Try that one. Candy Crush is quite colorful too. Torchlight 2 is colorful and has cutesy violence.
 
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Thanks.

I was actually thinking of the new Zelda game these days. ;)
Looks very colourful, too. ;)
 
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Merely a thought from me from the SWTOR forum :

The "GTN" there is the so-called "Galactic Trade Network", some kind of auction house with fixed prices and no bidding. Each item is there only for 3 day maximum.
AlrikFassbauer said:
I just don't buy much from the GTN these days anymore because of that inflation.
I'm happy with what I have, and that's just enough for me.
Traders won't get many pennies from me.

But - the other side is that most people need to learn how to become like that. To be self-sufficient.
Greed is something Capitalism teraches very, very well.

On a meta scale, things become transformated into kinds of "suction apparatus" sucking money out of people. Through selling items.

This does not only work in RL, but in small scale on the GTN as well.
People use use this kind of apparatus are interested in amassing a lot of meterial wealth. To them, those amassing spiritual wealth are most dangerous, because a state of self-sufficientness (right word ?) is a state of denying money to them. Spirituall wealth = no money = danger for materialists.

So, looking at the GTN, one can very nicely see several sets of psychologies of people work. It would be a nice field study on the psychological behaviour ofd participants of the GTN and in other similar things in other MMOs.
 
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One of the reasons why I was absent here and why I don't play games that much anymore is just this : I'm inherently tired of killing NPCs, or animals, or whatever … "The thrill is gone", to quote one older blues song. And the taste is gone, too.

I assume that I'm just too old for playing "killing games" these days. I'll be actively looking out for games with no killing at all…
I have a good news for you, there are many stealth games allowing not kill at all.

Also Eschalon Book 1 can be finished without any kill.

For me the problem is show me game systems as deep that can be a combat system. Even a stealth system is very far to match. Any dialog system is just basic in comparison. Puzzling just can't match the same diversity and depth than combats. I can't count games that duplicated more or less some classic puzzles, and/or that are based mainly on hidden object mechanisms and basic puzzles. Riddles, common.
 
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I see what you mean … What I just don't understand is why combat is considered to be that important … In RL, I just don't fight all of the time … :rolleyes:
 
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Some postings are just ... uargh.

"Rava" and "Mara" are abbreviations invented by this person for 2 advanced classes.

Playing ur game since 6 year
Sorry for my bad English but I have to speak u English becuz I think have a omerta about Rava and Mara profession in ur FORUM, u have to nerf it immediately!
About 45% of player is Rava or Mara, pose u 1 question, why???
PVP is impossible, I have 7 professions stuffed at 246 and all Mara or Rava 220 kill me on 5 sec, is not normal!
All Mara or Rava can root me and bring me 75% of my life!!!!
U HAVE TO NERF THE DPS OR THE ROOT OF THAT PROFESSION!
I repeat, I think have omerta on ur forum and many Rava or Mara don’t want u nerf that profession, but plz, play ur game and u will se what I try to tell u!!!
This game is dean if u don’t equilibrate PVP playing!!!
 
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I see what you mean … What I just don't understand is why combat is considered to be that important … In RL, I just don't fight all of the time … :rolleyes:
Almost nobody has enough fun in RL to consider it like a fun game, wrong comparison.

Sport context could do the trick, I noticed a few football (Europe) JRPG. A sport like Blood Bowl used in a RPG could be fun.

It's probably a part of education, I remind have been quite interested by some old wars during my 13-15 years, and then it totally vanished, but there's still a light special interest to combat and wars, not at all for sports even if it took many more years before the curiosity vanished.
 
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Well, I loved to build and play with these tiny tank and airplane models made from plastic as a kid, but apart from that ... "Star Wars" is the only war-like setting I more or less like. Apart from that, wars were never interesting to me.

Interesting to me were riddles and stories, things to be found out ... Like the stories behind RL words, where they come from etc. ... and that's why I once began reading texts from ancient authors, and ended up loving Archaeology ... I don't think that a younger customer base most games are oriented to liks this "old stuff".

When I read and hear about "more mature games" or "games for a more mature audience", this usually means morebrutality and more graphical violence. I don't remember having EVER seen a game being advertised at an "more mature audience" NOT having that, or, in other words, haviong OTHER themes like that.
I mean, I'm sure one could do a really deep story and drama with lots of riddles and so on for a "more mature" audience, but nobody does this. Why ? Because the younger customer base would not want it. I feel kind of alienated by "the big companioes" focussing at their target customer base which wants some kind of "violent mindless fun", so to say.
It's like I wanted to go to a french cuisine restaurant, but all I find is Burger King or McDonalds. Nobody sells to me french cuisine, because they all see that fast food sells far too well. ... so well that they just don't want to sell anyother thing, because it would not be cost / profits effective to try to make & sell something deep, complex, complicated that only a tiny target base would want.
From a more cynical point of view, making the lowest quality (with the least amount of costs) if it seöös well is far more cost / profit effectiove than selling something ... deep, complex, complicated ... Welcome to capitalism.
 
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The thing is, that not enough people actually like riddles in games to make this into big games. There is point & click adventures, and some more riddle based games like portal which due to their limited assets are cheap to produce.
Combat and Riddles stretch the game length. Without these you'd just need more of what costs tons of money. Like assets and voice acting.
There are games without combat, telling a story, like Heavy Rain. But they only last for 10h and cost tons of money to produce, leading to a price of 50€ upwards.

So as long as it's not possible to have an AI generate exploration or story based games, like a No Man's Sky, just much more diverse and less repetitive, you either have to play very short games, or play games which are stretched by other elements, like combat.

Ofc there are also completely different genres and setups. E.g. simulation games (Euro Truck Simulator) or Management Games (Sim City, Sims, Football Managers), but if you limit yourself to pure story/exploration games you have to think about how to create them effectively.

Personally I played a lot with Lego and Cars as a kid, built tracks in sand and stuff like that. But I always also enjoyed playing battles with He-Man, Dino-Raiders, MASK, Turtles, Lego Pirates, Playmobil Knights and so on.
And with current RPGs, good combat systems and challenging fights are the elements I enjoy most.
 
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And with current RPGs, good combat systems and challenging fights are the elements I enjoy most.
For sure for most RPG, most of their character building and equipment is around the combats, and their main filler is combats. So they better have good combats.

You are mentioning good combat system and challenging fights, but on this I disagree. Good combats is the only aspect. An example is DOS1, more than half of the game is filled with combats without any design or too basic, the great combat system and their challenge level changes nothing to that.

Dragonfall could have a less good combat system but its combats are much better because each is tuned and carefully designed, obviously not in DOS1. Result is at some point in DOS1 it becomes tedious, when all along Dragonfall there's interesting combats and a nice diversity.

So:
- Combat system, yes.
- Challenge level, yes with measure not challenge based on duration, but on diversity, new problems, new solutions.
- And tuned design of each combat, not throw some enemies and it's done.
 
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Hrm. Wouldn't have considered DOS1 combat as challenging though.

But Avernum for example has tons of fights without much of a story context. But they were extremely challenging (on highest difficulty) which is why I enjoyed them nevertheless.

Jagged Alliance is another great example of combats without being extremely embedded in story. Loved the fights there.
 
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What is difficult? If you can beat it, why it was difficult? In real time ok, in turn based, what you mean difficult?

For me Spiderweb could have some typical example of boredom long combat, as one of the possible final in Avadon.

EDIT: And I consider the tactical design quite average for their games, difficulty mainly based on excessive amount of HP. I remind have read dev was trying to target that.

EDIT2: Don't get me wrong, all their games have a quite higher tactical values than real time with one character RPG as there's ton, from Witcher to Elder Scroll. But in context of turn based it's quite average tactical quality.
 
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Difficult means, regardless of real time or turn based, that you might need multiple attempts to beat it. Or that you need to maximize everything in order to have a chance.

In DOS I added additional rules for myself (no deaths, no use of special arrows, no use of potions, no saving/loading in combat) to get any challenge at all as the combat was ridiculously easy.
 
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Difficult means, regardless of real time or turn based, that you might need multiple attempts to beat it.
Ok but why? What was different between first attempts and won attempts? Know how combat will evolve?
Or that you need to maximize everything in order to have a chance.
That's another aspect, it's not the combat that is difficult then, it's the party building, meaning many building won't work. Well at least that's how I see it.
 
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I am not sure I can follow your strain of thoughts here. Maybe it's best to let you explain what difficulty means for you.
 
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For me difficulty in turn based is linked to number of errors I can do before lost the combat. This means mechanism should be complex enough and diversified enough to involve plenty true decisions meaning many potential errors. The second aspect is it works much less well when it's repetitive, you just repeat and do much less errors. That's why, for me, difficulty in tactical games is deeply linked to diversity of design of combats, new problems requiring new solutions, increasing number of errors before to adapt.

EDIT: For example, if a character was close to die during a combat, and I see or feel I cumulated too many small errors or did a big one, that could be enough to consider it had some difficulty, and enough for me. I don't need have to repeat it plenty times to feel it was difficult.

Difficulty is widely a psychological aspect.
 
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Difficult means, regardless of real time or turn based, that you might need multiple attempts to beat it. Or that you need to maximize everything in order to have a chance.

In DOS I added additional rules for myself (no deaths, no use of special arrows, no use of potions, no saving/loading in combat) to get any challenge at all as the combat was ridiculously easy.

what do you mean exactly by "Maximize everything in order to have a chance?"
 
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what do you mean exactly by "Maximize everything in order to have a chance?"

Always buy newest equipment.
Know which combinations of spells/characters are the most effective.
Don't "waste" character points for ineffective skills/attributes
Know where the gaps are, especially in gated skill-systems as in Wasteland (where a skill of 3 might give a bonus of +2 and a skill of 5 gives a bonus of +3 and a skill of 4 is entirely pointless)

And so on, and so forth. If a game is really hard, you should want to get the most out of the game systems (without having to rely on spoilers on cookie cutter builds and exploits).
It's actually one of the reasons I play on hardest. I like the challenge, but I also like to "feel" how tiny changes actually make a difference.
On easy difficulties you might just blindly run into your enemies and slaughter everything. You will never fully understand how the different mechanics are tied into each other and how they are balanced. You might not see that the better sword you got actually made any difference.
 
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I don’t play on hard difficulty because of challenge, but because I want to intensify the weight of decisions. It’s essentially a way to maximize the return on my investment in a game. It’s my own gift to myself.

If you play on the hardest difficulty, you will have a much easier time feeling the consequences of gameplay decisions.

Which is why I never play on hard in games I don’t expect to invest much in. Because overcoming tougher obstacles in a game I don’t particularly enjoy for the gameplay would just be punishing myself. That makes no sense to me.

I don’t feel challenged by singleplayer games because they’re designed to be beaten. That means anyone without a serious handicap will be able to beat them if only they invest enough time and effort.

I did that enough in the past on very high levels to understand that it’s not hard at all, especially if you genuinely enjoy the game.
 
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